Two men did India proud at the Oscars, 2008. One was the internationally acclaimed music director A R Rahman, dubbed the Mozart of Madras, and the other was sound designer Resul Pookutty, until then not too well known outside the film firmament.
The awards were for the Hollywood film Slumdog Millionaire. Resul's Oscar for Sound Mixing, however, turned him into a celebrity overnight, and he was wined, dined and feted all over the country. Riding high on his Oscar success, which was preceded by his becoming the first Asian technician to win the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award, Resul penned his memoirs in his native Malayalam, which turned out to be a huge bestseller. Sounding Off is the English translation of his autobiography, written in collaboration with Baiju Natarajan, and translated by K K Muralidharan.
The story of a young boy from Vilakkupura, a nondescript village in Kerala, who shelves his ambition to become a lawyer/doctor and instead opts to do a course in Sound Engineering at the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), thanks to his fascination for sound right from his early days, is narrated with a great deal of simplicity and warmth, and manages to hold the reader's interest. A family man to the core, Resul writes of his bonds with his parents, brothers and sisters, the simple joys they shared back in their village, and the trauma that grips him on the death of his umma (mother), and later his bappa (father). His love for animals, the tender care that he lavished on goats, dogs and cows, and how, even at an impressionable age, he developed an affinity for sound, also find a mention in the book. His marriage to Shadia, who has been a pillar of strength all along, the birth of his children, and his unfulfilled desire to be a homing pigeon, add a homely touch.
The autobiography picks up steam with his admission into FTII, and thereafter details the major influences in his life, his exposure to the pick of world cinema, and the works of Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon) and Ritwik Ghatak. Resul finds work in serials and slowly begins to make a mark in Bollywood with films like Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Saawariya and Black, and Feroze Abbas Khan's Gandhi, My Father. His conviction and his mastery over his craft enables him to exert himself and even stand up to a colossus of cinema like Amitabh Bachchan, one of the first to recognise his genius. Resul sings paens to the superstar and to Shahrukh Khan, but takes a dig at Kamal Haasan, actor extraordinaire and someone who knows cinema, including the technical aspects, like the back of his hand, when he opines that Kamal thinks too much and eventually comes out with indifferent products.
Strange but true, Resul almost dropped out of Slumdog Millionaire, as he found his ideas not gaining acceptance, but opted to stick on at the insistence of director Danny Boyle who, in a tribute, describes Resul as a touchstone during the making of the film. The rest, as they say, is history, for the film swept the Oscars that year, and from virtual anonymity, Resul Pookutty became a household name.
There is a chapter devoted to the lesser-known contributors to cinema like the Foley artistes, whose job is to create different types of sounds, the boom men, and the focus pullers. The small circle of friends who always stood by him through thick and thin, his first landlady, and the bais (servant maids) of Mumbai who waited on him, hand and foot, have all come in for considerable praise.
One thread that runs right through the text is his total dedication to his profession and his offer to work to complete a film, even as his father lay dead in another part of the country. Resul, however, bemoans the fact that technicians do not often get their due, not just because of the countless number of dud cheques in his possession, but also in terms of the reception they receive when they win international awards, drawing a parallel between him and Rahman whose achievement found the media, both print and visual, going bonkers over him. Rahman, however, has paid a fine compliment to his colleague when he says in the blurb — "This heartfelt memoir brilliantly describes Resul's exemplary journey".
Although the book is about a man who has reached the acme in the field of cinematic sound technology, it is free of technical jargon. The translation by Muralidharan stays simple and has not missed out on the flavour of the original, with the sounds and smells of the soil seeping through in the first half, and resilience and conviction of the protagonist coming into play after he enters tinseldom. Verily, this is a work that comes straight from the heart and that in itself makes it a good read.
The awards were for the Hollywood film Slumdog Millionaire. Resul's Oscar for Sound Mixing, however, turned him into a celebrity overnight, and he was wined, dined and feted all over the country. Riding high on his Oscar success, which was preceded by his becoming the first Asian technician to win the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award, Resul penned his memoirs in his native Malayalam, which turned out to be a huge bestseller. Sounding Off is the English translation of his autobiography, written in collaboration with Baiju Natarajan, and translated by K K Muralidharan.
The story of a young boy from Vilakkupura, a nondescript village in Kerala, who shelves his ambition to become a lawyer/doctor and instead opts to do a course in Sound Engineering at the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), thanks to his fascination for sound right from his early days, is narrated with a great deal of simplicity and warmth, and manages to hold the reader's interest. A family man to the core, Resul writes of his bonds with his parents, brothers and sisters, the simple joys they shared back in their village, and the trauma that grips him on the death of his umma (mother), and later his bappa (father). His love for animals, the tender care that he lavished on goats, dogs and cows, and how, even at an impressionable age, he developed an affinity for sound, also find a mention in the book. His marriage to Shadia, who has been a pillar of strength all along, the birth of his children, and his unfulfilled desire to be a homing pigeon, add a homely touch.
The autobiography picks up steam with his admission into FTII, and thereafter details the major influences in his life, his exposure to the pick of world cinema, and the works of Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon) and Ritwik Ghatak. Resul finds work in serials and slowly begins to make a mark in Bollywood with films like Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Saawariya and Black, and Feroze Abbas Khan's Gandhi, My Father. His conviction and his mastery over his craft enables him to exert himself and even stand up to a colossus of cinema like Amitabh Bachchan, one of the first to recognise his genius. Resul sings paens to the superstar and to Shahrukh Khan, but takes a dig at Kamal Haasan, actor extraordinaire and someone who knows cinema, including the technical aspects, like the back of his hand, when he opines that Kamal thinks too much and eventually comes out with indifferent products.
Strange but true, Resul almost dropped out of Slumdog Millionaire, as he found his ideas not gaining acceptance, but opted to stick on at the insistence of director Danny Boyle who, in a tribute, describes Resul as a touchstone during the making of the film. The rest, as they say, is history, for the film swept the Oscars that year, and from virtual anonymity, Resul Pookutty became a household name.
There is a chapter devoted to the lesser-known contributors to cinema like the Foley artistes, whose job is to create different types of sounds, the boom men, and the focus pullers. The small circle of friends who always stood by him through thick and thin, his first landlady, and the bais (servant maids) of Mumbai who waited on him, hand and foot, have all come in for considerable praise.
One thread that runs right through the text is his total dedication to his profession and his offer to work to complete a film, even as his father lay dead in another part of the country. Resul, however, bemoans the fact that technicians do not often get their due, not just because of the countless number of dud cheques in his possession, but also in terms of the reception they receive when they win international awards, drawing a parallel between him and Rahman whose achievement found the media, both print and visual, going bonkers over him. Rahman, however, has paid a fine compliment to his colleague when he says in the blurb — "This heartfelt memoir brilliantly describes Resul's exemplary journey".
Although the book is about a man who has reached the acme in the field of cinematic sound technology, it is free of technical jargon. The translation by Muralidharan stays simple and has not missed out on the flavour of the original, with the sounds and smells of the soil seeping through in the first half, and resilience and conviction of the protagonist coming into play after he enters tinseldom. Verily, this is a work that comes straight from the heart and that in itself makes it a good read.